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Mathematical Treasure: Heron's Commentary on Euclid's Elements

Author(s):

Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University)

Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria (1st century CE) was a Greek geometer and engineer who taught at the Museum in Alexandria. He is known for writing a commentary on Euclid’s Elements. A Greek language manuscript copy of his work (Plimpton Add. MS 06) was made in Venice in the 16th century. Two sample pages from this work are shown below.

The images above have been obtained through the kind cooperation of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the Columbia University Libraries. These and more images may be accessed via Digital Scriptorium, a digital collection of medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts made available by a consortium of cooperating university libraries headed by the University of California, Berkeley.